Finding Watson
by Rikamaru Takahashi
Summary: When John Watson is kidnapped, Sherlock is forced through three trials to retrieve his friend that risk his physical and mental health. Additionally, he only has twenty four hours to complete the three tasks and upon solving the first trial, he discovers that this feat will be far more difficult than expected.


I.

Sherlock Holmes awoke with a start in the dim first light of morning. He immediately began to assess himself, discovering a large, tender bruise of horrendous size beneath his left eye and the skin of his lip torn and bleeding profusely. The skin of his knuckles were raw and pink, blood dried around the edges, indicating the tale of a unfortunate stroll beneath the lights of London. He could remember the assailants leaping at them in the dark. He could remember throwing his fists at the men, battling for the sake of the other man who was crying out his name for help. It seemed as though those moments of battle Sherlock remembered most vividly, like the images were still fresh and present or as if the events had been recorded and were being played back to him.

"Sherlock!" the ex-army doctor had cried as the men had begun to drag him away from the detective and into the shadows of the night time alleyway. The consulting detective was preoccupied with defending himself against the other men, though he heard the cries and made an additional attempt to make it through the crowd of men to his distressed friend. Sherlock felt as if he were on a high and he was hallucinating the events. It felt as if they were duelling with a score of men, half of them working to restrain and to take away John while the other half fought to keep Sherlock from meddling in their plans. The colours swirled around him, blurring the shapes and forms of all of the pursuers and causing Sherlock's abilities to become impaired. "Sherlock!" The detective's memory went black after that ejaculation, probably stolen and masked by some illicit drug.

The scene had been cleaned, obviously. There were no signs and no evidence as to there even being a brawl in this alley the night before. Each piece of litter seemed to have returned to its place amongst the bile on the pavement of the alley and each yellow weed that sprung from the cracks in the side-walk was untouched. Not a leaf was torn or defiled, but each plant looked as if they had never been disturbed.

Sherlock's nose turned up to the sky at the breaking dawn. The sun met the sky today at 7:15 am. Sherlock had been laying there on the pavement, in the cold and slowly being coated with dew for nearly seven hours.

This made the detective abashed for John had been taken seven hours ago on enigmatic circumstances. Anyone could have taken his dear friend. His friend could be so far away or he could be bereft of life. Some much could have happened in the period of seven hours.

For once, Sherlock was terrified to the point of emotional recognition. His only faithful companion- the ex-army doctor who was willing, after only two brief minutes of knowing him, had taken up residence in a flat with him, who had gunned down a man for him and had saved his life numerous other times- Dr. John H. Watson had been kidnapped and he had no leads. There were no scuff marks upon the cement to follow, no blood upon the bricks of the nearby buildings and- most alarmingly- still no John. Sherlock's brain seemed to shut off at the thought of losing John and the fault falling on him.

He couldn't have been kidnapped. He had just gone to get help. That was right.

No. It wasn't John wouldn't have been gone for seven hours getting help and he wouldn't have gotten side tracked. The only plausible explanation was that John had been kidnapped.

Sherlock quickly pulled out his mobile phone to call John, hoping to be able to connect to him, though he knew that the chance of actually reaching him was very slim. However, upon the glowing screen was a message. It read, "You've always been alone. You've always investigated alone and you go into danger alone. Now John is alone and in danger alone. You have twenty-four hours to find him if you value the life of your companion. Call: 001-843-2374."

Sherlock reacted immediately without much thought. He tapped the highlighted number with his thumb and called it. He placed the phone to his ear and listened to it ring. He looked so odd with his body battered, his coat pooling behind him and his legs crossed while he sat in the middle of a deserted alleyway. At least he would look odd if anyone were looking.

The phone went on with its blearing noise for a long moment before John's crackling voice was heard on the other line. He sounded like he had when he bore Moriarty's bomb beneath his coat beside the pool. He sounded so terrified.

"S-Sherlock..." John rasped out, the phone going static with his heavy breathing. Perhaps they had a bad connection also with all of these buildings in the way of the signal.

"John. I'm coming for you."

"No. You can't, Sherlock. Please don't-" He said sternly before the line went silent.

"John? John?" Sherlock asked into the phone. Had something happened to John? Was he not meant to speak to him? Alarmed, he pulled back from the phone to see if the timer was still running. Luckily, the timer still ticked and the numbers still ran, pulling back one after the other to show off the next number for a split second before moving on. John hadn't hung up yet, or at least the line was still open. John could have been snatched from the phone for all that he knew.

"Sherlock?" his companion requested, ushering him back to the phone. His voice wavered ever so slightly, but that was hardly audible with the phone so far from Sherlock's ear. "You've been to all of these places and I've written about them all in my blog. Go to the site where our first adventure ended. There, you'll find the first clue- but be careful Sherlock!"John came out of his painful discourse with that statement. With the level of distress in his voice, Sherlock knew what John really meant; he would have to play a dangerous game to get back the good doctor that would most likely jeopardize both of their lives multiple times. He would have to gamble life and limb to return John to the flat alive and well.

"Thank you, John. Now matter what you do, don't let them hurt you." He ordered his companion, to which he agreed. Then, the line went dead. Sherlock pulled back and looked over the timer. It read one minute exactly.

Sherlock leaped to his feet in an instant and he streaked down the street, his feet moving double-quick and creating a raucous on the pavement as hard sole met hard cement. He remembered where the school building was precisely, as he knew this city inside and out. He was taken off guard only by several cars, one nearly running him over- the man that sat in the seat screamed and bellowed at him, muttering unintelligibly under his breath and giving Sherlock a few rather unsightly and deplorable hand signs. He had no time to stop and get a cab, though it would have been a great convenience to rest his feet and acquire the power and speed of an auto-mobile. However, his feet had already set to reaching the school on their own. Besides, he had no idea how many trials there would be and a cabbie that took him through ill traffic and horrible routes just wouldn't do.

Sherlock reached the school building, barely scathing fifteen minutes. At this rate, he would be able to find John before the night came. The detective caught his breath, then turned toward the building at his right. He could remember the mistake that John had made- entering the school's twin on the left- that so benefited him. Without that, Sherlock would have had a far worse chance of deciding correctly as he wasn't quite alert when he was taken inside. So, Sherlock remembered which building he had entered.

Sherlock hurried up the dim stairways and corridors until he reached the lecture hall in which he had been faced with the choice proposed by that wonderfully brilliant, misguided, perfectly good waste of genius cabbie. Sunlight from the hot orange morning sun poured into the room, giving the tables and chairs a sunburst glow. Here was a rectangular object- resembling a chalk board or a tablet- covered in a dark cloth. Nothing could be seen through it, yet it seemed to hold the utmost importance. On either side of the covered tablet was a massive red button. The two buttons were identical in every essence. They both were the same size and they were positioned at an equal distance from the tablet. Sherlock knew what sort of game this was without much effort. Earlier in the year, he had come here during a Study in Pink- as John had titled it. He would need to make a hazardous decision once more. This tablet certainly contained some information of vital importance. What could it be? Was it worth whatever consequence would arise from choosing incorrectly? Most importantly, what was on this tablet?

A bullet was shot out, barely scathing Sherlock's head, noticeably shifting his bistre curls. He stiffened, then ducked below the tables. He then realized that this attempt was futile. The gunner had missed purposefully; this was apparent due to the fact that the bullet had been shot from Sherlock's front and there was a limited amount of room before him. This meant that the gunner would have had a clear shot at him, yet he didn't take it. When glancing back at the new bullet hole in the window, Sherlock was reminded of the last events of the night. He remember- prominently- the dying word of the genius cabbie, 'Moriarty'. He was mystified as to how he hadn't known that John had shot down the cabbie because everything had added up, pointing only John as the shooter.

Sherlock pushed himself from the floor as fast as a meerkat from its burrow. His eyes even resembled those of pray, which was something new for the detective's features to accommodate. For once, he was weak. John made him weak- or at least, the absence of him made him weak. His mouth dropped open to speak, but starring down the barrel of a pistol quickly extinguished whatever words that had been on his tongue like water would a natural fire.

"Sherlock Holmes!" The man cried out. "It's a pleasure to meet you!" His voice was tenor and his speech wavered every three syllables or so. His face was etched with shallow wrinkles and his eyes were a fleeting and stormy grey. His hair was a silky, tar black with flecks of silver within the stiff bristles. He seemed to be a young man- mid twenties to early thirties- taken by stress and- upon observing the unforgiving state of the woman's picture peeking from his back pocket- he was a widower, burdened by stress and the lack of his wife. Stress possibly caused by his wife. Perhaps he had cheated on her, or perhaps she had been disloyal to him. Perhaps he had got her in an undesired state. Upon examining the stitching of his trousers and the ring finger of his left hand, he retrieved that they had a short marriage and he had most likely cheated on her and regretted it. The wedding ring had been removed, then replaced in a different spot as there were two different tan lines. Also, the stitching of the button on his pants were looser than an normal man's, therefore, they had regularly been removed with vigour. This was a man ravaged by drink and regretful of the decisions made while he was ill-minded.

Sherlock's mind was off track. He needed to focus on the task on hand and not this bunk.

"Quite." Sherlock snapped, obvious haste in his voice. "What are the point of these two buttons? And the tablet?" He inquired, his arms crossing, but remaining loose so that he could

"How rude! I've gone through all of this work to surprise you and you don't have the decency to say hello. I am- however- proud to have Sherlock Holmes puzzled. Allow me to explain." The man lowered his gun and smirked before he began his explanation with amazing gusto for a man with a speech impediment. He found this thrilling- perhaps because he knew these were some of his last moments. "You see those two buttons before you? Each is connected to a trigger. Pressing the button will trigger a bomb to go off somewhere here in London. One of the buttons will detonate a bomb at the site where your partner is located at. Kaboom!"- He interjected, waving his fingers in the air and imitating debris with jazz fingers- "Your _lover,"_ Sherlock stiffened slightly at that claim, but said nothing, neither approving or denying, "will have been scattered over all of Greater London- well, all of London that survives the explosion. Simple solution: press the other button, right?"

A sudden guilty thought came to Sherlock; he wanted a cigarette- a long, fulfilling drag off a cancer stick would calm his nerves, that was for sure. And John. John could do that too.

"If you press the other button, this building suffers the same fate as the other. Each building has fifteen seconds to detonation, so there is plenty of time for you to escape should you choose to blow up this place. So, Mr. Holmes, you must choose your button."

"Why should I even press the button?" Sherlock inquired, cocking his head very slightly so that his curls shifted.

"Because," the man brought his finger to his chin and his stormy grey eyes pierced those bright blue eyes of Sherlock like a storm cloud against a pure, otherwise cloudless blue sky, "on the tablet beneath this cloth is a code. This is just a piece of the code that is required to get into the building where Dr. Watson is. Without pressing the button, you won't get the code. No matter if you find the building, you won't be able to get to him, much less save him." The man taunted and raised his gun once more. "You have one minute to choose."

The detective was on fire, his brain working like a factory machine; a machine burning and overheating with no way to cool down, improperly maintained and badly designed. God, it burned and it set fire to his entire body, causing sweat to break out everywhere under the thick fabric of his coat and making his cheeks alight with fire red fury.

It took Sherlock less than thirty seconds to decide. He slammed his hand down on the button to the right and he snatched up the tablet. He bolted from the room, a mind numbing ringing consuming his ears.

Sherlock leaped down each set of steps, each set of steps appearing as an Olympic high jump of marble. Feeling a sickening crack as he fell short- he had landed on the step fourth to last- he tumbled down the rest. That crack had most definitely come from his ankle, but he couldn't afford to wait. He pushed himself up from the floor and he threw himself from the building (landing nearly a metre away from it, then dragging himself another metre), shielding his head from the oncoming blast.

Tails and tongues of fire spilled into the air and licked at the detective. The wisps succeeded in setting his coat ablaze, forcing him to roll through the rubble, injured and disoriented. The pain that scorched his back wasn't even noticed over that of his ankle. If it was not already, his ankle would be broken by now from all of his rolling and tumbling.

He had yet to kill John, unless the ordeal was a trick and both buildings had been reduced to fiery ashes. He hoped not, dearly and truly. He begged for the man's words to be truth and not debauchery. Once the flames had been smothered, he stopped on his stomach and searched through his pockets for his phone. Upon retrieving his phone and awakening it, he encountered a new text message, opened upon his screen. This time, the screen only displayed a number which he was to call. This, Sherlock tapped with his thumb and called, needing so desperately to hear John's voice once more. He pressed the phone to his ear and waited for the droning, dull ring-back in his ear.

"Sherlock! Are you all right?!" John cried into the phone the instant that the line connected. "They've been threatening me."The tears were beginning to show in his voice and by the severity of his voice, he hadn't cried much. The sound of his speech mocked a crackle in the road, or like dried clay that lacks a varnish. It was most likely that he had let loose a few tears in pain or fear and was now attempting to hold them at bay; the army doctor was highly unlikely to let any emotional tears shed, though- he wouldn't admit this- he had before.

"I'm fine!" Sherlock replied quickly, nearly cradling the phone against his cheek, the sound of his voice so precious to his ears. At least nothing so horrendous was happening to John. He wasn't in too much pain, or else Sherlock was sure to know it. "Please tell me that they haven't hurt you."

"No. They haven't touched me. I'm fine. I'm safe... for now." John assured Sherlock. "What's going on?"

"I just caused an explosion." He said, hearing the sharp intake of the doctor's breath. "That's beside the point. I need your help fast." He said firmly. "My ankle is broken."

"I can't help you, Sherlock. I'm sorry." Now John's voice was staccato and bitter as if he were being forced from helping. The detective's eyes grew glossy, struggling to imagine the pain without John's encouragements. Maybe he could recall some of the encouragements and the pain would lessen. Sherlock could remember a time when he hadn't desired anyone. Then, he wouldn't have needed John's encouragements to get through the pain of setting his own broken bone. That was a time before John.

"Do you remember the first time that you couldn't trust your own senses, when you faced the H.O.U.N.D. Of Baskerville?" John asked, his voice painful and slow as if it were a large object, forced through a small strainer. "There is a laboratory on the outskirts of the city. Go there and there you must decide if you can trust your finely tuned senses."

The call was ended and Sherlock's hand fell to the dirt with exhaustion, revealing the timer and it showed exactly one minute once more. This mastermind was very uniform in the way that he managed his phone calls. Within a few seconds after the call ended, an additional timer appeared- the same as had appeared only two hours before- showing 22 hours left in the game.

II.

Sherlock stared at the phone in his hand, mystified. How had time flown by so quickly? Had he truly spent two hours on this trial- this piece of the puzzle? Now he had even more set backs resting upon him like anvils on his shoulders.

First, there was his ankle that he needed to deal with, which would cause him immense trouble in many different areas. He would have to endure the pain of setting the fractured bone (or bones), by himself or otherwise. It would also sap time from the game. He wouldn't be able to run any more and he would most likely need an additional support, or a crutch.

Second, it was going to be time consuming to attempt to find that enigmatic laboratory that John spoke of. The spectrum was so broad. There were so many laboratories at the outskirts of London and singling out the correct one with so few leads would be next to impossible. He needed to take care of the most immediate problem first: his ankle.

Sherlock knew very well how to fix his ankle if one bone was broken. However, if more than three were broken, he would need help. It would simply be too painful even for him to survey the damage, much less fix the problem.

Slowly, Sherlock reached down to his ankle and began to pull back the fabric of his trousers. He hissed the moment that his fingers grazed his damaged joint. There were definitely more bones broken than three. Just upon looking over his now abnormally surfaced skin, he could tell quite plainly that some of the bones had shattered.

Now, Sherlock was faced with a problem. Should he wait for the approaching fire-engines to arrive so that they could tend to him? Should he call Molly? What would she know about fixing bones? She's a mortician. He could always try to solve the problem himself and cause more harm than good. The only sane option would be to wait, but Sherlock was on a strict time frame.

He pulled his phone from his pocket to check the timer. He had been on the ground thinking for over thirty minutes. Time flew when he thought calmly.

Where were those damn firemen?! Sherlock slowly laid back onto the asphalt, his body laying back onto the scorched ground. His eyes began to slide shut as the stress pulled him from consciousness. Slowly, beyond his will, his vision went black and it took his senses.

The firemen reached the building ruins within five minutes of Sherlock losing consciousness. Half of the men began to search through the rubble for any other survivors. They discovered the dismembered remains of another unidentifiable man scattered through the rocks and rubble. Sherlock was taken from the site and brought to the hospital. His ankle was inspected and reassembled.

When Sherlock awoke, the sun was nearing the edge of the western horizon. It was about eight o'clock. He glanced about himself for his coat- which had been removed from him and placed beside him in a chair. However, he was unable to reach for it as his foot was being held aloft by a sling that was attached to the ceiling, restraining any motions.

"Damn..." Sherlock growled and looked around once more for an emergency help button. He needed help. He needed John. He swivelled and slammed his hand against the button, unaware that each time that he pressed the button, it turned on a speaker at the secretary's desk, allowing his voice through. "He- me- urse- elp- e- nur!"

The secretary leaped from her comfortable office chair and she plucked up a random nurse to assess the trouble with Mr. Holmes.

"Nurse! Quickly! Help me!"The nurse came sprinting through the hallways toward the ward of the screaming man. "Help!"

The nurse burst into the room, prepared to help the man in any way possible. Sherlock was hanging off of his bed, supporting himself with his hands on the floor. His foot remained in the sling, twisted around so that his toes were facing the bed. He was leaning forward, attempting to reach his coat on the chair.

"I need my phone! I need to get out of here!" Sherlock cried out, his face beet red with anger and the blood that rushed to his head. Pain riveted his body and his face was beaded with sweat as he endured the pain of moving his ankle.

"Mr. Holmes!" The nurse cried out, diving forward and beginning to lift the man from the floor. "You need to lay down!"

"I need my phone!" Sherlock ordered, pushing himself from the floor and onto the bed once more. He sat back down and began to remove his ankle from the sling. "Get me crutches. I have to leave!"

"I can't, sir. You need to rest!" The nurse ordered, attempting to keep the thrashing detective to the bed. "You need to rest!"

"I. Can't." Sherlock enunciated, his lips forming a thin, angry line. "A life depends on me right now. I. Need. My. Phone." The nurse went stiff and nodded, turning and hurrying to his coat. She felt it wrong to dig through a patient's belongings, so she lifted it and set the dark coat beside him.

Furiously, he began to search through his coat almost as if he were a ravenous wolf devouring a fresh kill. The nurse half expected for scraps of cloth to begin to fly from that man's hands in his vicious pursuit or even for the man to begin to grow hair and sharp teeth, for his hands to grow into paws and for his nails to become claws.

Finally, the phone was produced from the coat, displaying a mere six hours remaining. His face drew pale and his steel blue eyes widened.

"Eleven hours?!" He cried out, nearly dropping the phone. "I've been unconscious for that long?!"

"In and out of consciousness." The nurse corrected pursing her lips before turning to the door. She would return with crutches for him. "I'll return." She told him before leaving.

Sherlock sat back staring at the timer. 10:58:42. He sighed heavily. He had so little time to find John that it infuriated him. For the first time, Sherlock had no will to find the culprit first or to solve the mystery first. If he found John, he would most likely find the culprit along with him.

He sighed and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to sprint into his Mind Palace. He needed to find where this laboratory, quickly. John had referred to the H.O.U.N.D., so he immediately began to search through the trade routes for any shipments of unknown or suspicious to the outskirts of the city. Two by two, the possibilities dropped like dead flies, first cancelling out any abandoned laboratories with no supply trucks travelling regularly within a mile. He also excluded all laboratories that were not receiving suspicious or unknown shipments. Finally, Sherlock had his sights narrowed down to two labs on the edge of the Thames.

Sherlock flailed slightly. "Get me loose! I know where to go!" The nurse jumped and cried out before complying and scrambling forward to unleash his leg from its sling. The nurse unclipped the sling and slowly lowered the detective's leg to the bed. She placed a hand against his chest to keep him from going wild. "I want you to use the crutches, all right?" She confirmed with him and refused to let up until he complied. Finally the detective let off a huff of a breath and nodded, defeated by this young woman. Once his leg was freed, he sat up and turned, placing his able foot on the floor, dangling his other.

The woman had left the room, a triumphant smile upon her delicate features. She left only to return five minutes later with a bottle of pain medication. She brought over the pain medication first and instructed Sherlock on when and how much to take, and also issued him the number for poison control, having been warned by Molly of his tendency for drug abuse.

"Thank you." Sherlock told her, proud of himself in that aspect as John had taught him this: when it was appropriate to thank someone.

"You're welcome. Now, you'd better be on your way, Mr. Holmes." The nurse told him, smiling as she stood and backed away from him.

Slowly, Sherlock brought himself to his feet, leaning his weight on the crutches that had been placed under him and his single able foot. He stabilized himself and he turned, beginning to hobble from the room as fast as possible. He would definitely need a cab now that he was disabled.

He sped from the building, explaining to the secretary that the bill should go out to Mycroft. He hurried out of St. Bart's, hailing a cab and climbing inside. Furiously, he ordered the cabbie, impatiently tapping his well foot, hoping for a swift trip. Along the way, he pulled out his phone to view the timer. A half-hour passed. At that moment, he ordered the cabbie faster.

Within the next five minutes, they arrived at an old white brick laboratory. The bricks had been nice, white and pretty once, but had been weathered by rain, time, and the Thames. They now appeared as limestone; pale, grey and cratered. Many dark windows lined the facility's walls, looking into empty, seemingly life devoid rooms. Sherlock thanked the cabbie, paid him and began to bobble toward the building. Ad he approached the building, the noise of a high pitched rumbling gradually grew in volume. The sound was menacing and cruel to Sherlock's ears and it began to aid in the formation of a pit in his stomach. What could make this sort of noise but a swarm of bees projected over speakers? He glanced up to the building and found two out of place looking speakers mounted at the roof of the laboratory.

He could recall years before when his and Mycroft's parents had yet to pass on. Sherlock had decided to study botany in the garden that his parents had begun to grow. Naturally, insects swarmed the plants at the noon hour that Sherlock had decided to study during. He was unaware of his allergy, so when he was stung, he disregarded it and returned to his studying. However, within the hour, he had collapsed with a high fever. Mycroft found him, a large rash overtaking his body.

In short, Sherlock had a large caution toward bees- or as normal people would say, a fear.

Sherlock approached the doors cautiously. He had already figured out what was to be expected from this challenge. He began to recognize this feeling as fear. His palms were cold, but sweat beaded over his body. His pulse was quickening and his body became more rigid as he neared the building, becoming more difficult to move. He was fighting against the instinct to flee.

Sherlock forced himself in through the doors and was instantly shrouded in a mysterious gas. He didn't even have time to hold his breath before the substance filled his lungs and caused him to hack and cough. Was this the same fog as used before during the H.O.U.N.D. Of Baskerville, something harmless, or something far worse than anything that he could have imagined?

Sherlock stumbled forward through the cloud and he continued to cough for a moment. Righting himself, he trudged along through the dimly lit corridor, seemingly drunk in his stupor.

The lights were faulty, flickering on and off, creating a sickeningly disorienting effect. The detective stumbled, eventually discarding his crutches as they were too much to manage. He limped through the hall, glancing to his feet now and again, noticing that it never looked as if he moved. The strobe caught his form whenever he hopped, making him look as he were levitating across the floor.

Sherlock all together felt sick. The strobe lights struck at him and rolled his stomach uncomfortably, churning up butterflies that stirred and kicked up the detective's confidence and set him wild. This effect along with the droning of a bee swarm numbed Sherlock's brain and trapped him in a vortex of unease and fear. At the end of the hall was a closed door, illuminated by an aura of dim light at the seams.

After reaching the door, Sherlock reached for the handle and realized that his fingers were shaking. He cursed, frowning as he stared at his hand. With the glow at the seam of the door, the image of his hand was clear and his hand rattled the door handle. Why was he afraid?

Sherlock opened the door.

Before him was a black cloud of insects, hovering, bearing swords upon their bodies. He knew that he was hallucinating for he could see the vibrations that each wing beat sent into the air. Still, he knew that this hallucination could be caused by drug or fear. The cloud of insects screamed out a horrible noise, a sound that struck Sherlock and made him wish that his ears would bleed just so that he had proof of the pain that it caused him. Very nearly, he screamed, the feeling of a searing hot knife piercing every inch of his skull.

His vision was blurred by the pain that the sound inflicted so that he was staring at the cloud through dark and doubled vision. Even so, he witnessed the swarm part for a moment to show a tablet, mounted upon a pedestal. The screen was black and Sherlock knew what this table held. He needed that tablet.

"Greetings Mr. Holmes." A voice whispered, putting the accents on the wrong syllables as if they were saying the words backwards. The words were projected over speakers in the walls and ceiling at an incredible volume. It rattle the floor and stirred up the bees, vibrating the glass that separated Sherlock and the bees, and finally broke the dam for Sherlock. He shrieked, the most horrible sound being unleashed from his lips. The pain in his ears took so much from him. The sounds were well above harmful levels.

"Pain. I see that you're in pain. Good." Sherlock couldn't even tell if the voice was male or female. The voice was distorted by a modulator and the pain. He closed his eyes and covered his ears, the noise still seeping through. He tried to focus on the noise that his muscles made' a slow rumbling sound like that if molten lava. That noise was far more pleasant that the rumbling noise from the speaker- the amplified sound of thousands and thousands of bees all roaring. "Fear. I want fear. Give me fear!" The volume was increased, crippling the detective. This only made him scream louder, in agony. "GIVE ME FEAR!"

The pain made Sherlock want to cry- a feat that no one would ever desire to witness. Yet, here the enigmatic, dynamic, stoic, fearless detective was, tears threatening to leak from his eyes. His head felt as if his brain were exploding within his skull. He was afraid. He was afraid that this trial would be the end of hi,. John would die if he quit now. John would die with him if he died.

"I'm afraid!" Sherlock bellowed before collapsing, his body crippled on the floor beneath his charred coat. His legs curled underneath him and his forehead was pressed to the floor, his sweat drenched hair swirling on the floor like damp brush tips. Sweat lubricated the tile flood and occasionally were inhaled accidentally. "GOD! I'M AFRAID!" It was a scream of frustration and defeat. He was only screaming to give the man what he wanted, nothing more. The words were a lie.

And like that, the pain receded and the volume was diminished. Silence filled the room, but Sherlock continued to silently writhe in pain as the noise remained in his eats. The writhing was more of a periodical tensing and squeezing his eyes shut more tightly, then slight relaxation. Gradually, the roar died and he calmed down, only left with a headache, a few stray tears and snot, both of which he kept to himself.

"You're afraid?" The voice whispered. It sounded proud of its accomplishment. It had Sherlock Holmes afraid!

"Good. I have a game for you. Before you is a swarm of bees. Separating you and the bees is a panel of glass. Prior to entering this room you were fumigated with a mist. At the beginning of the game, we will shatter the glass, stirring up the bees. The bees will attack. Are these harmless honey bees or are these deadly killer bees? Will you find that there are no bees at all? Will you find that you've been indeed drugged and that there was never a danger? Either way, you must face the fear. You must hurry to the tablet amidst the bees." The voice concluded before the glass before Sherlock shattered and the man released a yelp as he stood.

Sherlock was weak and disoriented, pale and still choking back his tears. His vision was doubled as his eyes met the tablet (viewing two). Within seconds, black swarmed his vision, filling the room with a massive cloud of thunder, and rumbling.

Though he was sick to his stomach, Sherlock bolted, moving quickly through the swarm, feeling daggers pierce his skin- any bare skin that they could reach, the greatest open area being his face. The moment that the first bee pierced the back of his hand, hundreds upon thousands of bees returned to avenge the death of their comrade. Sherlock gritted his teeth at the first sting, yelped at the second and cried out at the third. He collected the tablet in his arms before sprinting as well as he could with his foot brace.

Finally, he was able to dive from the room, curling away from the door. Thankfully, the door closed after him, trapping him in the corridor of strobes where he was forced to crawl through. Along the way back to the door, he emptied his stomach in the hall, bathing the tile in putrid browns and greens. He dragged himself from the building, hearing horrible screams on the voice from before. The bees had leaked to the location of the owner of the voice and they had killed him.

Sherlock collapsed on the gravel outside, panting heavily. His vision was beginning to blur and dim as nausea began to set in.

"John..." He groaned, choking slightly. He would only request help of John. He could only show weakness to John. "John... Help... J-John... I'm dying... John..."

Sherlock was dying. Three bees had stung him and he was deathly allergic to bee stings. He didn't have his epinephrine auto-injector because he hadn't had a fit since childhood. Now he was only a phone call away from losing everything- the game, his work, his life, John.

Now, the scene from his childhood was reoccurring, the site of the wounds beginning to swell and fester, turning purple and pink and blotchy. Sherlock's well hand reached into his pocket and he removed his phone. He struggled a great deal to dial the number for emergency on his phone with his sight coming in and out of focus, the lights of the city fading and brightening.

He could feel his body beginning to shut down, cold and darkness pouring over his system. His vision began to go dark, narrowing to a tunnel of darkness, sharpening the glare of the light like a focusing camera lens. The severity of the light made Sherlock's head burn and ache. The darkness began to close around the light and soon he was consumed by the darkness.

III.

When Sherlock awoke, he was once more in the hospital. He let off the most heavy of breaths. The sun was beginning to rise. Only a slight glow sat at the horizon, but Sherlock knew by the feeling in his gut that he only had an hour left to find John. He had rested seven hours, a collective eighteen hours- the most that he had slept in a twenty-four hour period in the passed five years. He only had an hour left before John was killed; snuffed out; taken out; smothered. John was going to die if he didn't act fast.

Sherlock pulled himself from the hospital bed and ragged his dizzy self and his lame leg to the side where his coat was hanging. He began to search through his pockets for his mobile phone. The phone was produced and the timer had appeared on the screen once more, confirming the fact that he only had an hour left. Additionally, he had a new text message.

Sherlock tapped the icon and the new message appeared on the screen and it read, "Congratulations Sherlock Holmes. You've made it to the final puzzle." Preceding the message was the number for John. He pressed the number and raised the phone to his ear.

"John? Are you there? Are you all right? Please tell me that you're all right." Sherlock pleaded, his hand trembling very slightly. His body looked worn out and abnormally thin.

There was a long pause.

"H-help... me..."

The blood left Sherlock's face as the phone left John's cheek and was handed to another, less terrified man. This new voice was low, hoarse and croaking.

"For this last task, y-you... must be as blind as a banker. Return to the scene of your confrontation with Shan. Hurry now! H-hurry! You're running out of time!" Then, the phone call ended and Sherlock nearly dropped his phone. He could make it. In an hour, no matter what the task, he could do it. He took his coat from the wall hook, threw on his coat and shoved his phone into his pocket. Sherlock turned and sprinted from the room, lame leg ignored. Even with the secretaries and the nurses attempting to stop him, their attempts prove futile against the pressured man. He was unstoppable.

Sherlock fled the hospital, hurrying through the city to the London underground, heading for the black tramway. He travelled through the damp, neglected catacombs that wound and twisted, forming a labyrinth of cold and hopelessness.

Finally, after many minutes of searching and sprinting, Sherlock came upon a strange stage in the centre of the tunnels, sunken into the floor at least two feet and shrouded by a curtain of black. The contents of this pit was hidden from Sherlock's eyes by the curtain, covering a rectangular area. Before the curtains was a harness, just the right size for Sherlock. He didn't even need instruction. He moved forward and immediately began to dress his hips and torso in the black harness; he first stepped into the right leg hole, then the left, finally pulling the harness over his torso, fitting it to himself like a backpack. A rope and a belay dropped from the curtain, nearly causing Sherlock to jump. He took the cable and began to connect it to his harness with the belay.

"Congratulations, Mr. Holmes, on making it this far. How does it-"

"I don't have time to chat. Cut to the chase." Sherlock snapped. The identity of the voice was irrelevant. It didn't matter. All that he needed was to complete this task and find John.

"Fine. Fine." The female voice told the detective, a slight stutter in her voice indicating fear. "Before you is a pit full of knives. I see that you've already settled yourself in your harness." The curtain drew back, revealing the statement as true. Knives littered every inch of the pit, protruding from the floor like stalagmites and they were coupled with stalactite knives on the ceiling. Sherlock gulped. Across the field of knives was a black tablet, alike the other before. This was the last piece of the puzzle. He would find John soon. He was too afraid to look to his time.

"...o! Go Mr. Holmes!" The woman cried out. Sherlock jumped, realizing that he had lost himself in thought. He hurried to the edge of the pit and gazed down at the knives. "Go!" Sherlock reached up and gripped the cord, stepping onto the knives.

The blades didn't stab through the soles of his shoes. Instead, his weight was held by the cord. He looked up to the ceiling and witnessed the stalactite knives dangling and wavering precariously. If he bent or twisted incorrectly, then his cord would be severed and he would be sent to an awful death by impalement. He took a deep breath before he began to move forward across the knives, leaning and twisting to avoid a painful death. However, as he went, his body became more heavy and the knives came closer to piercing his shoes. Additionally, the stalactite knives began to lower toward him, the space the he was allowed to occupy becoming severely limited. At one point, Sherlock was forced to lean back nearly horizontally to avoid the blades. Staring up at the deadly silver teeth drawing near his face and began to etch bloody lines into his pale cheek of as he moved. He moved forward quickly, attempting to reach the tablet. It was so close. If only he could just...

A horrible sound reverberated through the tunnel- the sound of tearing. Sherlock glanced back- once again gaining bloody lines on his opposite cheek- only to find that the cord was being torn. He looked back to the tablet. He was so close.

The cord snapped. A scream bellowed through the tunnel and blood sprayed everywhere, drenching the silver knives blood red and the cement a maroon.

However, the blood did not belong to the detective. No. It belonged to the lady that had instructed him. She had been attached to his cord, dangling. However, when his cord snapped, she was dropped onto the knives herself and, now as Sherlock looked back, she was nearly ripped in two by the knives. Sherlock winced. Never had he desired to cause such a gruesome death. However, it didn't weigh very heavy on his conscious. He hadn't known her.

He took the tablet in his hand, shed his harness and leaped up to the tunnel floor, brushing himself off. He immediately dropped onto his bum on the floor, pulling out his phone and illuminating the screen of the tablet. His phone contained the other pieces of the code.

Sherlock decoded the message easily and assembled it with ease. The code read Kidbrooke. Kidbrooke was an abandon estate named after a watercourse, built upon a disused military sight and still is now a centre of crime. A criminal could easily hide with his captive there.

Sherlock dashed from the tunnels to the surface where he hailed the first cab that he saw. He ordered the cabbie, but apparently, non-criminals knew Kidbrooke also and the cabbie nearly rejected him as he believed that anyone that wanted to go there was going there to do 'no good'. Sherlock protested and was inevitably forced to explain his entire story before the cabbie took him. This ordeal consumed about ten minutes. Sherlock hastily looked to the timer and nibbled on his lip. Adrenaline filled his body as he saw the number. He had five minutes.

"Make it there in five minutes and you'll get an extra ten pounds." He told the cabbie and immediately, the pace was picked up. Scenery sped by and the cabbie knew who was on patrol on what street and avoided the police cleanly. He arrived to Kidbrooke in five minutes exactly and before Sherlock had even exited the cab, he watched the timer hit zero and a gun shot riveted the complex.

Sherlock's heart nearly stopped. He had lost. He had lost the game and he had lost John. His mind and heart wouldn't believe that there was no hope left. There couldn't be hopelessness. Sherlock took off into the complex, telling the cabbie to wait for him. He dove into the concrete building, struggling through dark and pitch black corridors. Some of the windows were covered in dark steel plates to attempt to smother the crime. However, now it was slowing Sherlock from finding John. In two minutes, he had found the room.

It was a large room with empty fabricated brick walls and a wide expanse of empty, unused space. There was no-one in the room to account for the body in the middle of the floor or the pool of blood that surrounded him. Sherlock's attention didn't stay on the room for long as he looked over the bleeding body of his companion, John H. Watson.

"John!" He cried, hurrying forward, pale faced and tears budding. He dropped into the blood and pulled the body into him, resting him on his lap and cradling his friend. "John! Say something! Anything! Tell me how you think I am. Repeat what you know about me. Say something, anything!" He was shrieking, crying almost. Tears slipped from his eyes as he stared down at his friend, attempting to find any vitals. His heart rate was out of control, trying to save the rest of his body from the gun shot wound that had pierced his shoulder- dangerously close to the subclavian artery. Sherlock was no medical professional, but that couldn't be good. John was losing blood at an alarming rate.

"S-Sherlock..."His eyes remained mostly closed as he looked up through half lidded eyes and spoke in a slurred rasp. "Y-you're... late." 'Late' sounded more like 'raid' but Sherlock understood.

"I know. I'm sorry. It wasn't as easy as one would imagine." Sherlock told him. "Don't go to sleep. I'll call emergency." He said and took out his phone, dialling the number and simply letting it ring. They would find them. In the mean time, he would make sure that John stayed with him. "Stay with me John. What can I do to keep you up?" He asked. "Trivia? Jokes? Secrets? Facts?"

"I'm... d-dying..." John whispered, closing his eyes as he leaned on Sherlock's chest. Even Sherlock could see that he was dying. "J-just... Kiss me."

Sherlock was astonished and taken aback. He didn't expect those words from John in the slightest. He searched through all of the mental records of John and searched for anything that indicated this. There were too many points that accounted for this, Sherlock could only blame his ignorance and denial for not seeing this coming. He didn't want John to love him. He didn't want John to be disappointed. Sherlock couldn't love anything but his work.

"All right."He said, gulping and bringing his lips in to make sure that they weren't dry and chapped. He didn't want to have his first kiss disturbed by unpleasant pain from chapped lips. Luckily, his lips were smooth and slightly moist. He gulped, trembling as he leaned down to his partner, eyes closed. It seemed like the space between them was endless and vast and that he would never reach his friend's lips.

At the moment when they touched, the paramedics filed in, crying out for them. Sherlock didn't feel like he ever wanted to let go of John. He had John. He was here and he wasn't leaving so he would stay like this with him for as long as John needed him to. He was a life line. He was the only thing keeping John here now.

The medics moved forward and attempted to take John up on a stretcher so that he would have a cushioned resting place. Sherlock pulled back when they moved him, but he took his friend's hand and gripped it. The medics laid John down on the floor and they began to put pressure on his wound to stop the bleeding.

John yelped when they touched his wound, but with Sherlock with him, he wasn't so loud. Sherlock moved on his knees, scooting toward his friend's head to see what they were doing to him. He bit his lip, seeing the needles and the blood. Sherlock wasn't afraid or even made uneasy by those, but when seeing them so near his friend, he was not happy.

"S-Sherlock.. Talk." John ordered. He knew what he needed. He needed to stay talking and remain comforted. Sherlock snapped from his daze.

"John. I truly hope that you didn't think that I had abandoned you. I would have never done that. I wouldn't have abandon the game and if I would have had my way, I would have found you in six hours. Those tests, they were harder than they seemed. I came off with a shattered ankle and a near death experience with killer bees." Sherlock listed off. "But even through all of that, I didn't stop until the end. I've never stopped moving until now, John. I would never give up until I reached you because I love you and you're my best friend and I know that if the situation were reversed, you would run in circles to find me. Don't die on me." Sherlock pleaded.

"I won't. I'm f-fine." John told Sherlock before closing his eyes and letting out a heavy breath. "Stay close." He ordered.

"I will." Sherlock nodded and pulled his friend's hand close to him. "You aren't leaving." He continued to state that as if he couldn't say anything more. They remained like this, Sherlock repeating hopeless words over John as he was worked on by the medics and John, half awake from all of the blood loss. They remained this way for a good half hour before they were taken from the building and to St. Bart's.

Sherlock slept on the couch, having dosed off after his case- which had kept him up for 72 hours. John had only just finished tea and he was returning to Sherlock's side with the beverages. The tea would grow cold before the detective was awake, but John didn't mind that fact. He only set down the tea and lifted his laptop onto its place upon his lap. He began to write in his blog.

He told of the suffering that he went through, Sherlock's heroism and their healing. Finally, he included nothing more than their relationship was improving, stating, "He doesn't just regard me as the ex-army doctor or even his friend. I'm much more than that now, and I'm thankful because he means as much to me as I do him. He is my best friend."

Page 22


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